1. Field of the Invention
Implementations described herein relate to a battery management system for managing the charging and service life of batteries. More particularly, in one aspect the invention relates to system and methods for managing a fleet of industrial batteries, vehicles, and chargers on a facility and corporate scale.
2. Related Art
Management of a battery is typically performed by monitoring the voltage at its terminals, discharging of the battery being for example interrupted at a low voltage threshold and charging thereof being interrupted at a high voltage threshold. Such a system is depicted in FIG. 1A. Generally, a battery that has reached one of these two limit voltages is disconnected in order to protect it, respectively, from overcharging or from extensive discharging which could damage the battery irreversibly. One skilled in the art will appreciate that, although it is fully charged, a re-chargable battery presents a decrease of its capacity with time and use. This decrease is a function of the conditions of use of the battery and its extent is generally difficult to evaluate without measuring the battery capacity. In numerous applications, a battery is considered to be defective and needing replacement when its capacity drops below 80% of its nominal or initial capacity.
In order to improve battery management and use fewer batterys to service a given number of vehicles and as shown in FIG. 1B, installations use a plurality of rechargeable batteries that collectively are referred to as a battery bank. Typically, the batteries of a battery bank system are recharged simultaneously or successively so as to keep them permanently charged. A conventional battery management system and associated battery management database are illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B, respectively. Although such management has the advantage of being simple to implement, opportunities exist to improve management of a battery bank that can ensure satisfactory operation of the battery bank system and optimize the service time of each battery of the battery bank and, thus, the cost and service rendered to the user.
Accordingly, a need exists for improved systems and methods for managing a fleet of industrial batteries, as well as associated vehicles and chargers, on a facility and corporate scale.